


Kerouac and Thursdays

by dilangley



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Destiel Reverse Bang, Destiel Reverse Bang 2017, M/M, Passion and angst, Professor Castiel, Vagabond Dean, castiel's perspective, some anti-gay language for time period
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 12:11:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10808766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilangley/pseuds/dilangley
Summary: "You think God thinks this is a sin?"Castiel stared down his entire lifetime's worth of beliefs and denied them. "No.""Me neither."They met on September 11, 1959. The beginning was clear, but for Castiel Novak and Dean Winchester, the ending was anything but.A non-linear look at a love story.





	Kerouac and Thursdays

**Author's Note:**

> Tremendous thanks to  hit_the_books for answering my desperate cry for help on /r/fandomnatural and beta'ing this fic! 
> 
> And all the credit in the world to the artist, somuchcolour, for the idea that became this fic and the beautiful artwork. When I picked up an art claim during pinch hitting and discovered who it was, I had a serious fangirl moment. This piece of work is incredible.

**The Turning Point **  
_March 27, 1960_****

Castiel almost never heard his ring on the party line, but he and Dean had barely hauled in the sleeping bags when he heard the three short dings. 

“Would you grab that, sunshine?” Dean teased as he tossed himself on the couch, dirty boots and all, and closed his eyes. He let out a deep, homey sigh as he settled into the cushions.

Castiel snagged the heavy metal phone off its cradle.

“Novak residence.”

“Hello. I’m looking for Dean Winchester.” The voice on the other end, a husky woman’s tone, belonged to someone beautiful. Castiel was certain without having any way of knowing it. A cold, dreadful hole opened in his stomach.

“May I ask who is calling?”

“It’s Lisa.” Castiel tried to respond, but the words were stuck in his throat. As if fearing he was about to hang up, Lisa plowed on. “I wouldn’t have called, but John’s been here for a week and hasn’t been sober for a single minute of it, and Ben’s getting his tonsils out tomorrow because the swelling has gotten worse. We all need him to come home.”

The hole in Castiel’s stomach stretched at its corners, growing so wide it swallowed his entrails. On the couch, Dean sat back up, tilted his head sideways.

“Home.” Castiel flushed with shame at hearing himself mumble the word. He coughed, cleared his throat, his mind, and forced out a calm, polite response. “He’s here. I’ll let you speak to him.”

He held out the phone, and in his blurred vision, he did not see Dean rise or take the phone from him. He just stood there, numb. Someone named Lisa was on the phone for Dean. Someone named John was drunk. Someone named Ben had tonsillitis. He tried to grab his thoughts, but they floated in the air around him as elusive as birds. Even reaching out with both hands, he could not keep hold of anything more complicated than the simple facts.

He couldn’t even hear Dean’s half of the phone conversation over the roaring in his ears.

By the time Dean was holding his arm, saying something, tugging at him, Castiel had finally formed a question.

“Who is she?” His voice sounded foreign, nothing like it was meant to.

“Cas, listen, let’s back up…” Dean was pleading. Castiel recognized distantly that was a bad omen.

“Who is she?” He shook his head; he repeated himself.

Dean did not have the decency to look away. He looked right at Castiel, stupidly green eyes unwavering.

“She’s my wife.”

“Wife.” Again Castiel could not stop himself from mumbling the last word of the speaker before him like some kind of perversion of the Narcissus and Echo myth. He imagined the little nymph’s despair as she stood before her beautiful hoped-for love and realized she could say nothing to make her dreams reality. And then he did not have to imagine that despair. It poured into him from the top, shoes leadenly filling first as the rest of him slowly went under.

Dean was talking, justifying, explaining, giving some reasons why it was not a betrayal, some reasons why it had happened. Castiel could not conceive how even one of them could matter.

“I don’t care.” He murmured before repeating more forcefully, “I don’t care. I am not whatever it is you think I am.”

How many times had he stood at faculty dinners, looking around at all of the men with their arms around shiny, colorful wives, and felt his difference like a black pock mark across his face? So many times he had felt certain everyone could see it on his skin, smell it in the whiff of him when he passed. He was never going to have that. He was never going to be that.

And he had thought Dean could not see or smell the difference on him because he had thought Dean was the difference too.

Instead he was that. Dean was one of the sport-coated men with an arm around a smiling wife who bore his name.

“Listen to me.” Dean’s voice sharpened, thin but dangerous.

“No.” Castiel let the weight of the word settle between them. “Go home.”

Castiel watched Dean’s struggle on his face. The corner of his mouth tilted down, the muscle along the side of his jaw tightened. For a second, he looked like a wounded animal in a trap, big eyes fearfully waiting for a fatal blow, heart fluttering in his throat. Then his entire face closed off, hardened. He was not going to beg. Not for Castiel. 

Castiel wondered if Dean would beg for Lisa. The hot shame of the thought turned his stomach.

He watched silently as Dean grabbed his bag and headed out the door. He did not slam it behind him.

  


**The Third Night**  
_September 13, 1959_

“You never told me how you ended up with that dopey name.” 

Dean ran his finger along the muscular slope of Castiel’s shoulder, tracing the outer edge of the clavicle bone to the hard muscle. He leaned down to a trail a kiss along the same path. Castiel quivered under the touch, gooseflesh leaping to life along his skin. They lay across the bed, bodies spooned together haphazardly, nakedness a comfortable byproduct of the sexual deviances they had just embraced… again.

“My parents, characters that they are, named me after a Judaic guardian angel. They made a mistake though. The Judaic guardian angel is named Cassiel. Castiel’s the Angel of Thursday.”

Laughter snuck out of Dean, unexpected and warm, and he kissed the shoulder again. Castiel felt the open-mouthed easiness of the gesture and faded drowsily against Dean. Castiel took the cigarette from his own mouth and stubbed it out in the ashtray, glanced back to make certain careless Dean did not have one dangling from his fingers.

“And what is it you teach, Angel of Thursday?”

“Classics. Latin, Greek, mythology.” Castiel tossed his arm back over his hip to stroke lazily along soft skin. 

“Boring old stuff.” Dean nuzzled into his neck.

“What about you?” Castiel said.

Dean hesitated behind him, swallowed hard. “You read Jack Kerouac?”

“No.” Castiel had seen the book reviews printed in the Sunday paper; literary critics bemoaned Kerouac’s loose morals and vagrant philosophies.

Dean sighed melodramatically. “It’s 1959, buddy. You have to read Kerouac. I’m a mechanic mostly, but I’m ‘on the road’ quite a bit too.”

“Nice literary pun.”

“Hey, I’m hip.” Dean licked the word up the curve of Castiel’s neck and made him shiver. 

They hadn’t left his house since they stumbled in the front door Friday night, all hazy drunkenness and lightning-hot tension. When Dean had finally, finally, finally reached out and cupped Castiel’s face in his hands, the world had broken open and spilled out its promises. Castiel had never kissed anyone the way Dean kissed him, as if his whole life had been playing out second by second just waiting for this. The hunger in Dean rumbled through him. Their bodies became a tangle of pressure and touch, rigid hardness and grasping hands.

Castiel had always known the things he did in the dark with men may have been dirty, may have been wrong, may have even been homosexual, but that night, the things he did with Dean felt sacred.

The memory heated Castiel, and he rolled over. With his head on the pillow, hair unoiled and mussed, too-long and wild, Dean looked like a movie star, a tired, gorgeous film icon. Castiel reached out for him, hand curling around the base of Dean’s neck, and pulled him. Dean roused at the touch and smiled sleepily into a long, toe-curling kiss.

“Professor, you have too much confidence in my ability to go another round.”

“One more,” Castiel murmured against his mouth. Tomorrow he had to go back to work. His suit needed ironing, and his lecture notes needed a second look. The morning would have coffee, oatmeal, and a reliable drive to his regular parking spot on campus. He would teach three classes, work through his office hours, and then come home to the quiet emptiness of his evening. Normalcy would fall back over his life like a funeral pall.

“Okay.” Dean’s voice was husky. “One more.”

  


**The First Last Time**  
_June 3, 1960_

The man tasted like cigarette smoke and tequila, and Castiel let him grope him in a dark bathroom stall. He let heat and urgency between them tumble into messy, grunting release and did not exchange names. He rezipped his pants without making eye contact, accepted a pat on the shoulder, a gracious atta-boy as his partner left first, and then stepped back out into the smoky noise of Rose’s. 

He was sticky with come when he saw Dean Winchester at the damn bar.

Dean turned as if their bodies thrummed on some matching frequency, scruff and leather. He got to his feet when their eyes met, and his body lurched, uncharacteristically clumsy. Castiel realized he was drunk and wanted to run across the crowded room to catch him. The urge came before he remembered. The memory made him want to stumble too, but it was too late to slow his feet’s steady trajectory. He got to Dean as the man reached out to him, steadying himself with a hard grip of his hand.

“Cas.” Dean’s tongue blurred the letters together. 

“How much have you had to drink?” 

“I won’t come back.” His slurred voice was fierce. “I know I fucked up. But I had to come back.”

“You’re not making any sense.” Castiel did not let go of him.

“Take me home.” 

It echoed the last words between them and touched the soft, bruised place on Castiel’s heart. He needed to say no and turn away, pretend he hadn’t seen Dean. He could go back to the last three months of sleepless nights and sudden breathless pain if a radio played “You Always Hurt the One You Love.” He would continue to avoid eye contact with Sam Winchester, who was in his 200-level Latin course as a result of the Fates’ very cruellest weaving, and he would eat Swanson frozen dinners and avoid Friday nights out with Gabriel. He was not an adulterer, and more than that, he was not someone who could bear to have been made a fool.

Dean had known he was carving himself a place in Castiel’s solid, serviceable life, and he had not slowed his whittling for a moment. He had been all too glad to make a vacation house out of Castiel’s home.

“Okay.” Castiel agreed. He slid his arm around Dean, ignoring the curious, accusatory gaze of the man he had just screwed in a bathroom stall, and steadied him out to the parking lot. 

He spent the night holding Dean, stroking the soft bristles of hair at the nape of his neck, listening to the drunken, snuffly snores. Every time he tried to step away and spare himself a moment of the stabbing pain in his chest, Dean would move in his sleep, groan and pull himself closer.

Castiel did not realize he had cried or slept until he woke up alone in the morning with a dried salt trail down his face.

  


**The Second Time**  
_October 16, 1959_

Castiel was stupid glad to see him standing there, leaning against his black convertible. He had parked at the curb beside the mailbox that said Novak. Dean smiled, aviators hiding his eyes, chambray shirt flapping loose around his lean body. 

“Did you miss me, Angel of Thursday?” Dean tossed his arms wide, cheeky as hell, unashamed to be parked outside another man’s house looking like Christmas had come early. Castiel glanced around. Next door, Mrs. Harvelle stood outside her front door. She saw him looking over at her and looked back with raised eyebrows and a too-observant expression. 

Suddenly, her flat line mouth snapped up at the corner, a wry smile appearing. Castiel realized Dean had just offered a friendly wave.

“Dean, now we need to walk over and say hello.”

“No, we don’t. I waved, the picture of a jacketed gentleman, and now I want to catch up with you.” Castiel ignored him and started walking next door. He felt Dean fall into step behind him and could imagine the smirk on the other man’s face.

“Hello there, Mrs. Harvelle. How are you today?” 

“Hello yourself, Mr. Novak. I’m doing well. My Joanna’s coming for a few weeks, bringing me those sweet babies to spoil.”

“That’s wonderful. She’s welcome to come over and look through my library whenever she wants. I’m guessing motherhood hasn’t changed her scholarly ways.”

“No. I think she still prefers ancient texts to magazines. She would have been a great success in your classes. Or anything else that required you to learn a bunch of mumbo-jumbo.” 

“Yes. She would have.” Castiel smiled politely and turned to Dean. “Mrs. Harvelle, I have a visitor too. This is Dean Winchester, my--”

“Cousin,” Dean concluded. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Winchester. Will you be staying long? Lawrence has our Harvest Festival coming up soon, as you know.”

“No ma’am. Just a drive-by.”

They exchanged a few more pleasantries before ducking their way back into Castiel’s brick rambler. When the door closed behind them, Castiel grabbed the front of Dean’s shirt in his fist and pulled him in. He stiffened for only an instant before softening into the kiss. Castiel licked the underside of his upper lip, tasted smoke and Coca-Cola, breathed in the smell of Dean’s leather car interior and aftershave.

They slipped apart breathlessly.

“You should have called.”

“I told you I’d come again.”

They carried a month’s worth of yearning down the hall to Castiel’s bedroom. Castiel wondered how he had been able to sleep all these nights, in a bed suddenly made too big; because the instant Dean sank down into its blankets, it was the right size once more. They stripped each other down slowly, a shirt pulled away so a nipple could roll between eager teeth, slacks unzipped so greedy hands could graze a hard cock. Licking, nibbling, gripping, grappling, they consumed one another until they were spent.

“This wasn’t my plan.” They were sprawled, each man on his back, limbs starfished out in the sweaty heat of the bedroom. Dean chuckled while he spoke. “I was going to surprise you and take you out to dinner, be respectable. But you’ve got me snowed, buddy boy.”

The words pressed themselves like a stamp on Castiel’s heart. It would not have done him any good, in this moment, to kid himself that he wasn’t a homosexual. 

“How long are you staying?”

“A coupla nights. Not long enough.” They kissed again. “You got food?”

“Three frozen Swanson dinners, and some ground beef.”

“Well, follow me, Mr. Novak. I’ll make us dinner.”

Castiel watched him redress, transforming from the hedonistic pleasurer back to a respectable man. He took a perverse pleasure in seeing the sunglasses tossed on his bedside table and the loafers kicked off in a trail towards the door.

Dean had a way of filling the kitchen as he set to work, opening cabinets and pulling out bowls, spoons, and pans. He had found the six pack in the fridge first, grabbing a beer for each of them and opening them on the edge of the counter. Castiel considered pointing out that it nicked the countertops but decided a chip in Formica laminate wasn’t worth interrupting the rhythm of a man cooking him dinner. By the time he had found all the ingredients, Dean looked like a pro, soaking white bread in cold milk and peeling potatoes.

“How do you know how to cook?” Castiel asked, impressed despite himself. 

“You remember my kid brother, Sam?” Castiel liked the question’s implied familiarity. He nodded. “Well, our mother died when we were little -- I was four and Sam was just a baby -- and it totalled my dad. He tried to do right by us, but he wasn’t much of a parent. Things were alright until the war.”

Dean began to chop the peeled potatoes into cubes.

“He couldn’t go. We were still snot-nosed, and there was nobody else to take us. So he was this able-bodied, hard-boiled guy who stayed behind when everybody else got drafted. He always drank too much, but now he was drowning himself in liquor. So I started cooking and taking care of things. Sammy was too little. Dad used to…” Dean no longer looked up from his work as he talked, no longer seemed to realize he was talking to anyone. He just chopped and mixed to the beat of his own story.

“Dad used to get drunk and call me names, call me faggot, tell me I was a disappointment.” Castiel’s insides felt like cast-iron at the very sound of the word.

“But when he was sober, he always appreciated me taking some of the load off of him. Especially when we got even older and he started long-haul trucking. He never said anything about it, but I think getting to leave us for that is the only reason he was able to get more sober. He hated being tied down by us kids.”

“So Sam didn’t go to school on any sort of G.I. money?” Castiel asked.

“No. I paid for the first year for him, and he’s worked hard for the rest himself. First one in the family to go to college. We’re damn proud of him.” Something in his voice made Castiel suspect the use of “we” was not entirely accurate.

“It sounds like you are a very good brother.”

“Easy to be a good brother to Sammy. Wait’ll you meet him, you’ll think he’s great.” 

The words felt like a promise, a dangling false hope that this could be something it could never be. Castiel finished his beer without a word.

  


**Another Last Time**  
_December 20, 1960_

His Christmas tree had piles of colorful baubles and a smug, smirking angel on top. Hannah had decorated it, as she did every year, and then come to stay for an entire week. Their parents were in South America -- they had sent a Christmas card -- but his sister never missed the holidays with him. This year, as a senior at Spelman College, Hannah had met someone. Castiel knew nothing about him, but he knew from her glow that he might not be able to capture many more Christmases with her like this. Someone was going to marry her. 

Right now, though, she was not gone, not folded into someone else’s family, but instead at the grocer’s to pick up the ingredients he was missing. Her absence gave him just enough time to wrap his last gift for her. He folded the peppermint-striped paper an extra time to make the too-long piece cover the box. Hannah was guaranteed to love the new Peggy Lee vinyl; if he took care not to tease her, she would probably play it and sing along into kitchen appliances for her coming days here.

He ripped the last piece of tape with his teeth and pressed it along the decorative paper.

“Perfect.” He said. As he put away the wrapping supplies, he saw the folded piece of stationery in the back corner of the drawer. He knew its contents without opening it again. Dean had left it behind after a drunken night, a handwritten explanation of things that were inexplicable. _I am married. Hell, Cas, you’ve got to be married with the ways things are. She was an abandoned woman with a kid, and I needed to prove I wasn’t exactly what we are._

The letter hadn’t said a goodbye as if even then, Dean had known they would not be giving each other up.

“Castiel!” Hannah’s voice rang out from the front hallway. “I’m back, and I found someone parked out in front of your house. I considered calling the police, but he claims he is a friend of yours.”

Castiel rounded the corner to see a beaming Hannah beside a sheepish Dean Winchester, who was holding both her grocery bags and a brown-wrapped package.

“He is.” Castiel replied. “I was expecting him to come by.”

He had meant to lie but realized the words were true.

“Hey Cas. I’m in town seeing Sammy, who is having Christmas with his girl’s family, by the way, and I wanted to drop by your present.”

“Can you stay for dinner, Mr. Winchester? I am making beef stew, and it will be delicious.” Hannah’s open smile made Castiel smile too. Dean snuck a look at Castiel, who nodded his approval, and then rewarded them all with a smile that spread slowly out from the center of his mouth to the corners, a genuine, uninhibited smile. It was the kind of charming smile that had gotten him in Castiel’s life in the first place.

“I’d love that, Miss Novak.”

Hannah cooked dinner and talked their ears off the entire time. She described her semester in detail, turning stories of literature classes and slumber parties into tales worth hearing. Castiel and Dean sat together at the kitchen table, knees touching under the tiny surface, and by the time the food was ready, they were all talking and eating. The beef stew was delicious, and Dean leapt up to wash the dishes with Hannah, winking at Castiel.

The whole Norman Rockwell image brought a lump to Castiel’s throat.

When Hannah announced that she was going to bed, they had been sitting in the living room listening to a radio reading of A Christmas Carol, Hannah tucked against Castiel’s side, Dean sprawled in the armchair. She kissed Castiel’s cheek, thanked Dean for keeping them company, and headed back to the bedroom. She always slept in Castiel’s room when she visited. He gladly took the couch.

“Damn.” Dean smiled, kicked his shoes off and put his feet up on the coffee table. “Your sister’s a bonafide peach.”

“I never thought I’d be introducing her to you.” 

“Me either.” Dean’s face grew serious. “Guess I got lucky. I really did just come by to bring you something.”

He pointed over to the butcher-paper present under the tree.

“Is it safe to keep it under the tree and open it Christmas Day?” Castiel asked.

“Yeah. It’s some old book I found that I thought you’d like.”

“You’re not supposed to tell me what the present is.” He felt the smile moving across his face.

“Eh. I’m not interested in dropping surprises on you anymore.” His face grew serious again. “You know that.”

“Yeah. I do.” Castiel knew he held all the cards. He could turn Dean away each of these times he came, but he didn’t. He knew all he had to do right now was stand up and reach out to break the stalemate. No wives, no norms, no expectations could hold them apart. Only he could. He looked at the swoop of hair above Dean’s face, the crinkle between his eyes as he waited, and he was tired of making himself miserable for the sake of everyone else.

Let Dean Winchester figure out his marriage, his identity crises. 

Castiel stood up and held out his hand. Dean took it without hesitation and rose to his feet. 

“I need to stop coming here.”

“I’m not going to make you stop.”

They came together as if they had been marking out the seconds since their last kiss. Dean cupped Castiel’s jaw, pulled him in tighter, licked the inside of his mouth. Castiel all but crawled inside of his shirt. They kissed one another to a desperately thrumming beat.

 

**The Fifth Time**  
_March 26, 1960_

The early spring air snapped too cold for camping, but the tallgrass prairie was beautiful. They had pitched their tents under a tall, robust American Elm tree, a towering island in the meadowgrass. Castiel had insisted on the two tents even as Dean had chuckled at his paranoia. The long weekend had stretched itself out over days of hiking and fishing and evenings of cooking the catch over the fire. Castiel’s knowledge of nature had surprised and delighted Dean. He had loved watching the smile curl across Dean’s face when he showed him the difference between sedges and rushes and the unexpected laugh when Castiel had been the first to catch and filet a fish.

“This dinner is delicious.” Castiel stuck his aluminum fork, unwashed from last night’s meal, back into the flaky fish. “You would never know we’re a pair of confirmed old bachelors.”

“Speak for yourself.” Dean shoveled in a mouthful of potatoes. “I’m young and sprightly.”

Castiel had a fleeting dirty thought about just how sprightly Dean was, but no matter how many times he and Dean had tangled themselves on sheets, kitchen tiles, and sleeping bags, Castiel was not going to suddenly be able to voice aloud the kinds of thoughts he had. Dean, however, had gotten good at reading him and winked over his full cheeks.

“You’re ridiculous.” Castiel could not hide the affection in those words. He picked up the flask and took a slug of scotch. Dean reached over to take it and did the same. Castiel thrilled foolishly watching Dean’s mouth touch where his just was.

“It’s part of my charm.” 

Their eyes met, warm sparks flying between them, and Castiel marveled over the sweaty-palmed, sandpaper-throated infatuation he felt. The syrupy sweet romance in teen movies had always been out of reach for him. Even when he had pretended he was normal, he had known it was not in his cards. Yet Dean had snuck to hold his hand when they went to see Attack of the Giant Leeches two visits ago, had left him a note with scribbled “See you soon, Angel of Thursday” each time he left, and just now, Dean was putting down his plate and scooting closer on the ground, legs sprawled in front of him.

Dean touched the side of Castiel’s face. Castiel felt his scruff bend under the gentle fingers, and he closed his eyes.

“You know I’m not just dicking around with you, don’t you?” Dean sounded worried, voice low. Castiel did not answer, his full heart spilling something out into his chest that made it ache, but he followed the magnetic line between them to connection. His mouth touched the straight line of Dean’s and with firm insistence, kissed it into a smile. 

Their kiss melted into the heat of intimacy. Dean slid his hand up, and Castiel hissed as the cool outside air hit his warm skin. Beneath his eyelids, colors swirled -- blues and reds and purples -- and his heart skittered sideways into his chest, a car careening from open road into a parking space where it belonged. He turned his body from sitting to kneeling and began to trail his way down Dean’s neck. 

He kissed skin, tugged playfully at buttons with his teeth, and replaced his mouth with his hands to undo the button of the fly, tightened. He heard Dean hiss now, a sharp intake of breath outside of his control, and pulled at the fabric as Dean shimmied to help him. In a single pull, he revealed an erection so hard it bobbled with rigid anticipation. Castiel savored the power of the moment. This beautiful man -- made of lean muscle and wandering ways, quick smiles and tiny vulnerabilities -- was captivated under his touch. He, Castiel Novak, was the North Star that kept drawing Dean Winchester home.

Together they made hot, wet work of their lovemaking, trading groans and shuddery gasps, licking invisible patterns between one another’s freckles, smelling the sweaty, salty tang of pheromones. The freedom and shamelessness of being together below sky and God flowed through Castiel’s very veins, and when he reached the peak of the orgasm he had been climbing, the sweet release came so hard it sent him from this plane for a few blissful minutes.

He returned to himself, tucked against Dean, clammy in the open air. The moment laid out unspoiled, untouched, until Castiel spoke.

“Do you believe in God?” He traced his finger over a slick patch next to Dean’s belly button.

Dean didn’t rush his answer. “I like the idea. Big man watching over us, having a plan. But I don’t know. It’s always seemed to me like the rules don’t match what He made, if he exists.”

“What do you mean?” 

“You think God thinks this is a sin?” They tilted their heads, Dean’s down and Castiel’s up, to meet one another’s gaze. 

Castiel stared down his entire lifetime’s beliefs and denied them. “No.”

“Me neither.”  


**Now**  
_August 29, 1960_

He showed up on the doorstep just as he had so many times before. 

Against misty rain and a hazy full moon glow, Dean Winchester cut a breathtaking figure, even with his head ducked and feet planted apart. He stood like a man braced for bad news, like a man who actually believed he might be turned away. The reversal of it turned Castiel’s stomach. 

Now it was Castiel who was James Dean, who was Kerouac, who was the man another man chased. He imagined himself as Dean, shirt loose in a cool breeze, aviators hiding his eyes, sunlight glinting off his dark hair. If he was to Dean anything like Dean was to him, he knew these visits would never stop. No one could resist a rebel without a cause.

Castiel looked at Dean’s hands. They hung loosely by his sides, fingers curled halfway to making fists. 

“Come on in.” Castiel heard the words in the air before he realized he had said them. It was midnight, he had sworn never to let this happen again, and yet he was inviting Dean in without a second thought. Hell, without even a first thought.

“This is the last time.” Dean looked up now, and featherlight rain drops clung to his eyelashes. Castiel’s insides tightened. His intestines pulled in so tight that they squeezed into his stomach acid. His heart thumped so hard it hurt.

“I mean it,” Dean continued. “I just needed to see you.” 

Castiel pulled the door open wider and let him in again.

 

**The First Time**  
_September 11, 1959_  


Castiel listened to his boss crack jokes that would have made a sailor blush, all without taking his cigarette from between his lips. The white stick bobbled and rolled.

“What it all boils down to, Mr. Novak, is that believing in God is worth it if you get a coupla holidays off a year. Atheists don’t have holidays.” 

“Aw, Charles, you know Castiel’s a big believer in God.” Gabriel, another colleague, piped in now. “He’s from real Bible-thumping Calvinist stock.”

Castiel thought of his parents -- his father and mother wearing handmade clothes and following Jesus across God knows where -- and could not think of a worse descriptor for them than Calvinists. If he was a stodgy, buttoned-up college professor, he could not blame it on the Novaks. And if he had his doubts that God watched over him, he could not blame them for those either.

“Knock it off, and let me drink this beer in peace.” Castiel took a long sip. Charles clapped him on the shoulder, stole a cigarette out of Gabriel’s jacket pocket, and said his farewells. 

“And then there were two,” Gabriel muttered. He slurped the bottom end of his gin and tonic, then started jawing on the latest ball game between the Kansas City Athletics and the New York Yankees. He proudly claimed that they almost squeaked out a victory. Considering the A’s hadn’t had a winning season since ‘52 and Castiel had not bothered to make a day trip for a game since ‘55, he only half-listened.

Friday nights, Castiel always came out with the same raggedy band of University of Kansas faculty members. They drank a few, talked about the declining quality of students (“Certainly not like when I was a student at BU!”), and then went home to their families. Or in Castiel’s case, home to a thick book and maybe a long-distance call from his sister, Hannah.

“Hey there, fellas.” 

Castiel turned to see a stranger leaning on the bar behind him. In a room full of smart coats and pressed slacks, this man wore a leather jacket, blue denim jeans, and muddy boots. Broad shoulders, lean, long body, and a smile that crinkled at the corners of green eyes… Castiel’s mouth went dry; he swallowed. Hot shame flushed through him, rising into his cheeks, and he tried to pretend he could not see the flecks of gold and brown swimming in the other man’s irises. He didn’t notice the sharp planes of the other man’s face or the fullness of his mouth. He told himself he didn’t notice anything that any other man wouldn’t.

It was one thing to slip up now and again, find his way to the wrong part of town, and commit unspeakable acts with a stranger, but he wasn’t supposed to feel this, this… clench in his entire body when a man walked into his regular life. He was supposed to have control over this. 

“Hey yourself.” Gabriel stuck a hand across Castiel’s body; the stranger shook it without hesitation. “I’m Gabriel Smith.”

“Dean Winchester. I’m in town visiting my kid brother, and after a day of sneaking in the back of his college lectures, I could use good company and a better beer.”

“Lectures at KU?” Castiel could not resist the question. Dean turned his head to look at him, really seeing him for the first time, and his face changed. His whole expression opened, his lips parting a little, his eyes widening slightly, his eyebrows raising a millimeter. Castiel’s heartbeat pulsed in his ears.

“Yessir. I’m thinking they require their professors to be as boring as possible before they hire them.”

Gabriel laughed. He waggled his thumb back and forth between him and Castiel. “We are esteemed professors at KU.”

Dean smiled this “Aw, shucks” grin and ducked his head for a second. “Well then I’ve definitely put my foot in my mouth. Let me buy you both a neat whiskey. It’ll sting for a minute, but then it’ll make you forget I ever wounded you.”

“I’ll never say no to a whiskey as long as it’s a gin and tonic.” Gabriel cracked another smile.

“What about you?” Dean raised an eyebrow. Even as he had bantered with Gabriel, he had never stopped looking at Castiel. Castiel, who could not quite shake the feeling that Dean could see right through him. 

“Actually, this is a good time for me to go home. I have a lot to do tomorrow. It was nice meeting you, Mr. Winchester.” Castiel stood up as he spoke, hands moving to smooth his jacket, pat his hair, without him giving them permission to do so.

“Nice meeting you,” Dean all but mumbled the words, eyes right on Castiel’s, his face intent.

“I’ll see you on Monday.” Gabriel nodded. “Have a nice weekend.”

“You too.” 

Ever responsible, Castiel had paid upon arrival for the two beers he had intended to have. Now he had the luxury of walking right out. He was embarrassed to find that he wanted to look back, to see if Dean was still watching him, still looking right through him. He kept his eyes fixed ahead until he was out to his car. He breathed a heavy sigh as he pulled the driver’s door open, leaning against the glossy yellow Caddie to exhale all the panic.

He wasn’t a fruit.

He was a respectable man. A professor. A friend. Sometimes he had urges, but he had them under control. He could meet a stranger in a bar and not want to fall into his eyes and learn all his secrets.

No matter how much he wanted those statements to be true, his thudding heart and sweaty palms proved them false.

“Wait!” He recognized the voice behind him, and he sighed again, this time an electric jolt of relief that made no sense. He needed to get as far away from Dean Winchester as possible, yet when he turned to see the man approaching, he shut the car door without getting in. “I’ve got a question for you.”

“Okay.” Castiel waited.

“See, last time I was in Lawrence.” Dean’s tone was measured, a hitch of near-hesitation in its charming burr. “Well, see, last time I was here, I picked a bar at random, and it turned out to be full of nancy boys. Can’t remember the name of it.” 

Castiel swallowed thickly, the bottom falling out from his stomach. 

“Rose’s,” he muttered, then coughed and repeated it in a surer voice. He always went to Rose’s when the desire got too heavy, when the need to touch another man became so great it scared him. 

“Yeah. Rose’s. You ever, uh, go there?”

Castiel knew he needed to say no. If Dean was testing him because he suspected something, if he had gotten the wrong idea from the way Castiel couldn’t stop staring at him, he would confirm the worst if he said yes. But as he looked at Dean, standing there with his hands in his jacket pockets, his face serious, he wondered if the question didn’t have a whole different meaning. 

“Yes.” The word tasted smoky, bitter, and he nearly choked on it.

The next few seconds stalled and dragged. Castiel’s lungs had stopped mid-expansion, his heart mid-contraction, his blood midstream. Finally, Dean’s face cracked open again, the seriousness melting into a smile that lit up his eyes. 

“Good. That’s the kind of place I like too.”

“You don’t live around here.” Castiel made it a statement.

Dean nodded. “I only blow through a couple times a year to see my brother.”

“That’s good too.”

“Yeah?” Dean took a step forward. “What’s your name?”

“Castiel Novak.” 

“Well, Mr. Novak, can I buy you that whiskey at Rose’s?” Dean grinned.

For the second time that night, Castiel said yes when he knew he should have said no.


End file.
